1702 Thoughts
Zhou Linfan looked at Alex and sighed when he saw his distressed face.
"Don't be so sad," the man said. "I know there are some pills that can even fix your Dantian. You're young. You can get healed and restart your cultivation journey."
Alex looked at the man and nodded. He could get back on his journey, but how quickly could he do that?
"Can you help me get back to the Southern Continent?" Alex asked. "The Second Prince and my cousin should be there too, so you can come along."
"I can't," the old man said. "It is probably because of you and what you guys did, but recently there has been an influx of soldiers searching through the ocean. They keep flying around. We can't leave."
"Soldiers? From the Eastern Continent?" Alex asked worriedly. "They haven't found us?"
"They can't, don't worry," the man replied. "I have a formation constantly running that keeps me from being found. As long as they don't look very carefully, they won't find us."
Alex didn't exactly feel safe, but the man had survived here for the last half a century, so maybe he could trust him.
The old man walked away to place his old pot back on the fire before walking back to Alex. "You should rest now. Once you're up, I'll check to see if I can do something about your wounds again. I'm sorry, but I'm not much of a healer, so I can't really tend to your wounds outside of what I've already done."
"No worries, I am one," Alex said. "Now that I'm up, I can help myself, so long as I have stuff to use."
"Oh, okay," the man said and nodded. "Still, rest for now. I'll search for what I can later on. This island isn't very large, so I might have to go to another one."
Alex nodded and laid back down on the leather that was underneath him. The old man walked outside, leaving Alex alone with his thoughts again.
So he had managed to teleport away and Pearl had saved him in the end. Then this man had helped hide him from the others.
That was some good news at least. So long as he wasn't dead or captured, that was tremendous news. Still, he was now crippled and wounded, and he didn't know what to do.
'I should forget about dealing with me being crippled for now,' Alex thought. 'I need to heal up first. Once I can stand on my own two feet without worrying about bleeding out, I can start dealing with the other problems.'
He was going to have to tackle the situation with care.
Sitting in the cave with nothing to do, Alex's mind wandered off again. He wondered how Pearl was doing in his beast space. Was he hurt? Was he healing?
As a Saint beast, he only needed Qi to heal back to normal, albeit after a long time. Alex hoped to give Pearl a healing pill too. But he couldn't do so right now.
His spirit was weak, and his Spiritual sea was not something he could access any longer. His Soul Space was the same.
Alex doubted either of those things were destroyed when his dantian was broken through. Nascent Souls and Soul Space survived even worse situations.
When a body was entirely destroyed, a Nascent Soul still lived. When a person died, their Soul Space still survived. So, the chances of his being destroyed were low.
But that was not to say that his Nascent Soul was not on the verge of dying and that his Soul Space wouldn't come to some misfortune if he waited too long either.
Also, with the situation he was currently in, Alex wondered what had happened to Godslayer. Was the Spiritual Sea fine? It was fine when his head was gone, but this was a different situation.
It was his cultivation that had disappeared this time, the thing that powered the spiritual sea in a way.
Alex was also worried if his sister had successfully made it back or not. He tried sensing where Whisker was, but sensing things was no longer a thing he could do. His senses were so very dull.
He tried to fall asleep sometime later, but he was too energetic to sleep anytime soon. So, he sat there thinking about what he would have to do in the future. There were no pills with the old man and he couldn't search for his own pill as he now lacked Spiritual sense.
Could he make some? No, that was impossible too. Even if he gave the old man some instruction, making him any good days within the next month would be impossible. He would have a better chance of asking him to take him to the Southern Continent while fighting off anyone who threatened to block their way.
And then as his thoughts wandered again, he once again remembered Yao Ning's death. Her death was going to haunt him, just like his master's death had all those years ago.
Only this one felt a lot more personal somehow.
He had spent less than half a year with his master, while with Yao Ning, he had spent nearly 30 years. Their relationship might not have been as close as he had with his master, but it was still a strong one.
And for destroying that, he hated the Dragon Emperor.
Rage slumbered inside of Alex right then, like embers in the hearth, but that was only because he knew that he could not do anything about the Dragon Emperor right at that time. It would burn bright when the time was right.
Alex closed his eyes as the evening brought in darkness and let himself grieve for the death of the woman who did what she could to save him. He cried and as such let himself fall asleep.
The next morning, Alex woke to some freshly cooked stew. The old man gave him all of it once it was ready, urging him to eat it all.
"Since you told me about your body cultivation, I assumed there wouldn't be any trouble with you eating solid meals," the man said. "I caught some True Silver pikes and added some herbs to it. The fish meat aids somewhat with healing."
Alex nodded as he heard that. "Thank you," he said and started eating. Once again, the dish made by this old man was so incredible that Alex regretted the old man not having proper dishes to cook these meals in.
He took some time to finish before feeling incredibly energized.
"I'll cultivate for the day and make your next meal later tonight, is that alright?" the old man said.
"That's fine," Alex said and watched the old man go deeper inside the cave. "You said the entire island is hidden, right?"
The old man paused and turned around. "Yes, why?" he asked.
"I'm gonna go around the island and look for herbs," Alex said. "Hopefully, I can find ones that will help me heal quickly so I can do what I must."
The old man's eyes narrowed. "And what is it that you must do?" he asked.
Alex gave a small smile. "Let me start with getting healed first," he said. "We can see to the rest later."
Then, he walked out of the cave and went to the forest to search for everything he would need.
